Examples Of Escapism In Tommy Orange

There There Essay #1
There There by Tommy Orange is a historical fiction novel spotlighting Native American characters as they face numerous challenges and navigate their way through life. Throughout the course of There There, Orange explores the theme of escapism. When times get difficult for the characters, they often disassociate themselves and escape from reality. The themes of escapism are most prevalent in Jacquie Red Feather’s and Edwin Black’s chapters. Jacquie is an abuse counselor battling alcoholism. She has two daughters, one who she gave up for a closed adoption, and one who committed suicide. Edwin is in his thirties and lives with his mom. He struggles to make connections with the outside world. In There There, Jacquie’s escape

Tommy Orange highlights drinking and despair to enlighten the reader about the characters' difficult lives filled with hopelessness and touches on how healing is essential. The author discusses a wound forming and states, “An unattended wound gets infected. Becomes a new kind of wound like the history of what actually happened became a new kind of history. All these stories that we haven’t been telling all this time, that we haven’t been listening to, are just part of what we need to heal” (Orange 137). Orange uses the metaphor of an infected wound to describe the historical toll and pain inflicted upon Native Americans. This “unattended wound” illustrates that numerous people in the Native American community experience intricate and challenging lives, not just the characters within the novel. Further, Orange writes how Jacquie questions that the people around her often appear to be filled with confidence and a lack of self-doubt, but “Jacquie can’t remember a day going by when at some point she hadn’t

Edwin reflects back and says, “When I moved back in with my mom, the door to my old room, to my old life in that room, it opened up like a mouth and swallowed me”, which implies that Edwin did not have much control at this moment over his isolation (Orange 64). Even though Edwin is aware of the depth of his addiction, he has difficulty combating it. Edwin feeling like he could not figure out how to make outside connections and felt drawn into his room, heavily impacts his life and creates a bigger issue. An example of tragedy is when Jacquie finishes listening to a speaker talk about how to keep children from self-harming themselves at a conference, and she quickly flees the room. Jacquie immediately goes back to her hotel room and recalls this tragic experience where “She saw the big hole first. Then her daughter’s emaciated body. There were little red and pink holes up and down both her arms. Her skin was white, blue, and yellow, with green veins. Jacquie was there to identify the body. The body was her daughter’s body, had been the little body she carried for just six months” (Orange 105). “Emaciated” is employed in the quote to demonstrate how Jamie, Jacquie’s daughter, looks in the ground, which could be meant to imitate Jacquie’s feelings the moment she sees Jamie. Orange chooses to write in 3rd person to reiterate that